Saudi Arabia Agreement Signed with South Korea for SMR Development

Nuclear Power Industry

Dalton reports that the government of South Korea and the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy in Saudi Arabia have signed an updated agreement to create a joint venture for the construction of a low-power small modular nuclear reactor in the Middle East kingdom. The revised pre-project engineering contract stipulates that Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the operator of all nuclear power plants in South Korea, will be the main project executor and participant in the joint venture on the South Korean side.

South Korea is already building the Middle East’s first commercial power reactors at the Barakah nuclear station in the United Arab Emirates. There are four South Korean APR1400 units under construction at Barakah. The SMR technology being planned for Saudi Arabia is the Korea Atomic Research Institute’s “system-integrated modular advanced reactor” (Smart), a medium-sized unit designed for generating electricity and for thermal applications such as seawater desalination. Scientists in South Korea have been developing the technology for 22 years.

They say the plant is able to generate 100 MW, or enough energy to supply a city with a population of 100,000 with 90 MW of electricity and 40,000 tonnes of fresh water a day. The unit has a 60-year design life and three-year refuelling cycle. The joint venture’s tasks are to finalise details of the reactor project, licence it, create infrastructure and export the technology. The agreement is a revision to a memorandum of understanding signed in September to commercialise the SMR technology. Saudi Arabia does not have any commercial nuclear plants, but has expressed ambitions to build around 17 GW of nuclear energy after 2040.

In April 2019 press reports said Saudi Arabia plans to issue a tender in 2020 to construct its first two commercial nuclear power reactors and is discussing the project with US and other potential suppliers. The world’s top oil exporter wants to diversify its energy mix, adding nuclear power so it can free up more crude for export. But the plans are facing scrutiny in the US because of potential military uses for the technology.

In January 2019 Saudi Arabia said it had received offers from five countries to build the first two plants. It said the countries were Russia, China, the US, France and South Korea.

[For the historical development of Saudi interest in nuclear power, see: 

http://i2mportal.com/search_resource.php?search_value=Saudi+Arabia&sort=relevance#page=1 ]